The Promise

The boy awkwardly put his shoes on. His school bus would arrive soon, and another day of tedious and bothersome school lay ahead.

The boy was ordinary in most respects; he was not too short for a ten-year-old, but not too tall either. He didn’t enjoy studying, but didn’t enjoy playing outside either. He was not very good around people, and would most often remain isolated from groups, or would be kicked out by the others, or would come back crying. Seeing this becoming a repetitive pattern, his parents decided that he was better indoors. He did not find fun in playing with other kids at school either. He had no friends to speak of, and he was too nervous to approach people. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to approach people; he just did not know what the kids around were talking about. Books were his only friends, and sometimes he could be seen talking to himself. He was very imaginative, and sometimes he saw hues around people. He first noticed it when his father scolded him for not falling in the first ten ranks in his class; he had a very menacing and fierce crimson mist around his face. Since then, he started seeing it around most people, the colours changing as their mood changed.

He tied his shoelaces carefully, and swung his heavy bag around his shoulders. It was really heavy for a student of class six, and that was because he decided he was too lazy to pack his bag every day, and carry all books on all days. He felt it’s weight too, but it did not bother him. He walked down the lane from his house to the main road, where the school bus was just arriving. He ran towards it awkwardly, and got on it before the conductor would tell him off for being late. He was usually one of the first people on the bus, and because of that he would usually be able to sit near a window. He loved to look out of the window as the bus raced through the streets every day. Nobody would come to bother him then, as they would just ignore the seats near him as if it were taken and just sit somewhere else. Sometimes, he would be asked roughly to move from the window seat by seniors, and he was too scared to not move, even if he occupied the seat first. Today was not one of those days, and he reached school uneventfully.

His classroom was very dull, and he did not like the crowded little room. It was very crowded on a full day and most he would wait for the recess for the room to empty out. He would not go out; he’d just sit in class but it was peaceful because there was nobody there. Sometimes he’d go to the library and borrow a book, and read it during the recesses. Nobody would come and bother him, or even talk to him. He felt lonely sometimes when he saw his classmates form groups, and they would have a happy yellow mist around them. But he would go back to his books, or if he didn’t have one, he would just stand at the window in the classroom that watched over the playground, and just silently stare at the other kids having fun.

Today, he had a book. He sat at his desk, kept his book on his lap, and rested his forehead on his desk as he read his book. He was oblivious to everything else, and he only had his imagination running wild as he visualised every word in the book he was reading.

“Which book is that?”

The boy looked up from his book and raised his head to see a girl looking down at him inquisitively. It was a classmate of his, but he had not asked her name or bothered to know. He said slowly, “It’s a Hardy Boys book.”

“Oooh, what is it about?”

He was mildly surprised that she hadn’t left after he gave her the answer to her question. He replied, “It’s like spy stories but the spies in this are teenagers.”

“Oooh, that sounds exciting! I’ll give it a try some time,” the girl said.

He put his head back on the desk to resume reading, now that the distraction would probably go.

“By the way, what’s your name? I forgot,” she said.

He looked up to see that she was still standing there. He told her his name, and as he was about to ask her name, the bell rang and everyone came rushing into the class, in a hurry to take seats. The class teacher was the one in charge of the period, and she addressed the class somewhat disappointed about all the complaints she was getting about the class being talkative. She decided to shuffle the seats of everyone to prevent that from happening again, and the boy saw himself in one corner of the room with the curious girl next to him. She was a very bright person, and he was the exact opposite.

As weeks went by, they began to talk more and more. For the boy who couldn’t find things to talk about, this was a change. The boy who had never been scolded for talking during class before now constantly got warned. The boy who despised school started looking forward to it, to meet his friend and have fun together. They would discuss about the books they had read, and it helped that their tastes in books were similar. The girl also found it interesting to talk to him and they both enjoyed their time with each other. He was surprised at the fact he had made a friend, but the most surprising fact of all was that no matter when he looked at her, he would not see any mist. He expected to see something like an uninterested grey or an irritated orange mist around her sometimes, but he never saw one. He always saw the mist around everyone but her.

The boy grew more confident in himself, and he felt more courageous to approach others and talk to them. He saw the mist of the people to whom he went to talk to grow from grey and orange to a bright yellow or a calm white. He made more friends, but the boy and the girl remained best friends. Sometimes, he wondered what he would be like if he had not met her. Would he still have no friends? Or would he have talked to someone else out of courage? Would books still be his only friends?

Another change he saw in his life was he started to enjoy playing. He realised why everyone ran out to play now: it was dumb fun to play with friends. He would play tag with his friends at a corner of the school grounds, and sometimes fall and get dirty, and he would still enjoy it and keep playing. His parents were surprised to see him come back from school in soiled clothes happily.

As Christmas was closing, the boy was enjoying going to school. He had friends, people to talk about everything with, a best friend who made him confident in himself and heard out all his worries and made him happy. He had no worries about the future, for he was too busy enjoying the present to think of it. Until the day he saw the girl’s mist for the first time.

He was on his way back from the library after exchanging the book he read last for something new when he saw the girl waiting for him. She looked sad, and though the colour wasn’t clear to him, there was definitely a mist around her now. He knew something serious was up.

“I’m leaving,” she said slowly.

“But it’s still recess, we’ve got two periods left-”

“That’s not what I meant,” she interrupted.

“I’m going abroad. My father got a job abroad, so I’m going abroad.”

The boy stood there, confused. One side of him was massively happy that she was going abroad, and he had heard going abroad was better than staying in the country. The other side was blank, thinking about how it would be to not have her with him during school.

“Is it decided?” he asked, after a pause.

“Yes. I’ll not be coming to this school after Christmas,” she said.

“I see,” he said, and went back to class, thinking of the implications.

The boy’s world turned upside down. He kept worriedly counting days till Christmas. He felt like he was struggling to stop a gear many times his size from rotating without being crushed by it, and he was failing. Every time he saw her, he would feel depressed and worried. And finally on the day of Christmas celebrations at school, it was time for them to say goodbye. As everyone went home, the boy stood at the back gates of the school, with the girl. She looked the saddest since he had met her.

“Bye-bye,” she said.

“Bye, and happy journey.”

“Before I go, can you promise me something?”

“What?”

“Never forget me, okay? You are my best friend, and I don’t want you to forget me by the time I come back.”

The boy was moved by the words. He was looking at his feet, but now he looked to her face. Tears were streaming down her face, and for the first time he saw a clear mist around her: a deep, sad indigo, the saddest he had seen yet.

“I promise.”

Twelve years later, the boy, now a young man, walked down a street in a faraway city. He had earphones plugged into his ears, and music streamed through them. If his best friends in the past was books, now it was music. His friends had all gone to different parts of the world, and now he was alone in this distant city. He constantly thought of his past, and sometimes of the promise. He had a great deal of respect for the girl, who had turned his life around from a gloomy and lonely kid to a normal, happy one. He wondered if they would meet again. As he walked down the road to buy some monthly supplies, he saw her. She had definitely changed from the time he knew her, but he was sure it was her. She was walking with someone else with a light-yellow mist around her, yet she had none. He was excited, and ran up to them, yanking off his earphones and asked slightly out of breath if he had recognised her right.

“How do you know my name?” she asked back at once. A mist was forming around her.

“I was your classmate in sixth grade – surely you remember!”

“I don’t remember you.” The mist was darkening to grey.

He told her his name, in hopes to spark her memory.

“I don’t know anyone by that name, sorry.”

“You- you’re joking, right? You made me promise I wouldn’t forget you,” he said.

“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” she said. The mist was turning into an irritated orange.

He walked away. Before he put his earphones back on, he heard the two women talk to each other.

“Who was that weirdo?”

“I don’t know, maybe some creep trying to hit on me.”

He pushed the earphones back in. He felt something fade in his heart. Was this really the one whose promise he had cherished? Was this the childhood friend he respected? He walked faster, and slowly his walk became a run. He did not know where he was running to, he went wherever his legs took him. He ran through streets and got to an intersection. He ran to cross the road, but his vision was too clouded by tears to see the grey car speeding at him.